Operation Linebacker II

Operation Linebacker II was a US aerial bombing campaign over North Vietnam which lasted from 18 to 29 December 1972 during the Vietnam War. The US successfully bombed the North into accepting its concessions, leading to the Paris Peace Accords.

In October 1972, Richard Nixon was running for a second term as President of the United States, and, encouraged by the ARVN's successes during the Easter Offensive, he resolved to complete the process of Vietnamization and end the war in Vietnam. In Paris, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho continued peace talks, and Tho made a concession by allowing for Nguyen Van Thieu to remain President of South Vietnam. The two sides soon had a tentative deal: a ceasefire would be in place, and a complete withdrawal of US troops and the return of all American POWs would occur within 60 days. The US halted its bombing of the north in the meantime. Thieu was not told of any of the terms, and he discovered the ceasefire plans from a captured Viet Cong document a day before Kissinger arrived to brief him about the deal. Thieu refused to accept the terms, as allowing North Vietnamese troops to remain in the South would be the death of his country. Nonetheless, when Kissinger returned home 12 days before the election, he told the press that peace was at hand.

On 7 November 1972, Nixon was re-elected to a second term with 60% of the popular vote and 521 electoral votes to Democrat George McGovern's 17 (winning every state but Massachusetts and Washington DC). Nixon sought to enact the peace deal before his second inauguration, and he decided to calm Thieu's fears by launching another massive airlift of military equipment to South Vietnam. The Paris peace talks resumed, but Tho suddenly announced that he needed to return to Hanoi for consultation, as the North Vietnamese government also faced dissent from their southern allies, in this case the Viet Cong, whose major goals were to remove Thieu from power and to release 30,000 of their prisoners. Pressured by the Viet Cong, Hanoi called off the peace deal.

Nixon ordered Kissinger to suspend the talks and resumed the bombing of North Vietnam to punish Hanoi and to signal to both Hanoi and Saigon that the US might use its air power to defend South Vietnam even after a peace agreement was signed. On 18 December 1972, Nixon unleashed around-the-clock airstrikes that flattened targets around Hanoi and Haiphong in the "Christmas bombing". The bombing was so intense that, in some villages, all of the trees were shattered, the fish in the rivers were killed, and even water buffaloes died. Around the world, anti-war demonstrators returned to the streets, and Swedish prime minister Olof Palme compared the USA to Nazi Germany, while the Pope called the bombing "the object of daily grief" for killing 1,624 civilians. North Vietnam shot down 15 B-52s along with 11 other aircraft, and 93 crewmen were reported missing, while 45 new POWs were locked up in Hanoi, one of whom died in captivity. Meanwhile, both the Chinese and the Soviets pressed Hanoi to resume negotiations, hoping for the Americans to leave already. On 26 December 1972, Hanoi signalled its willingness to return to Paris, and it took just six days to reach a final agreement. The US bombed North Vietnam into accepting the US' concessions, and Thieu was ultimately pressured to agree to peace after the US reassured him that the US would bomb the North if it resumed its aggression against the South. Thieu saw Nixon as an honest man and agreed to trust him when he promised support if South Vietnam came under attack again. On 23 January 1973, a day after former President Lyndon B. Johnson's death and 28 years after the start of US involvement in Vietnam, Nixon announced the conclusion of the Paris Peace Accords, ending the Vietnam War with peace and honor through a ceasefire which began on 27 January. Within 60 days from 27 January, all American POWs in Indochina were to be released, and all 591 POWs were released in batches of 40. By 15 August 1973, 95% of the United States' troops had left Vietnam.